Richard Estes remains a leading figure in photorealist painting, skillfully transforming ordinary subjects into captivating visual narratives. Ellis Island View exemplifies Estes' enduring fascination with travel and transportation hubs, particularly within his beloved New York City. He established his career in the 1960s with hard-edged portrayals of the New York cityscape—a tradition he continues today.

A hallmark of Estes’s unique artistic approach is his manipulation of perspective and unusual cropping with oblique angles, evoking the lens of a photographer. The perspective in Ellis Island View showcases both an interior deck and an exterior view of the Hudson River surrounding Ellis Island and Liberty Island. In 1976, Estes began exploring paintings of water views. In his urban landscapes, water is often juxtaposed with a distant cityscape or side views of boats and docks. This artistic device prevents water’s expressive and abstract qualities from overwhelming his hyper-realistic compositions.